Goal Setting Process: Supporting Choice in a Feminist Group for Women with Alcohol Problems

ABSTRACT

Women who seek help for alcohol related concerns may have goals ranging from maintaining abstinence to moderating or simply monitoring their drinking. Facilitating a group when participants' goals vary is challenging but not impossible. The potential for slipping into the common stance of identifying abstinence as the most desirable goal can be avoided by sensitive group facilitation. This paper describes how a feminist group intervention employed the group process to support decision-making across a range of goal choices; it provides some guidance on how social group workers can assist in the difficult work of identifying, clarifying, and working toward self-selected goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Goal selection
• group process
• alcohol groups
• feminist groups
• client empowerment
• goal choice
• self-determination